We respect Brazil, but we will play hard, says Indian women's team defender Sweety Devi

Indian women's team defender Nganbam Sweety Devi said the most important thing for her side is to play together as a team, ahead of the clash against Brazil. The Indian women's football team will be facing Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela later this month.

"We need to be strong mentally. Playing Brazil won't be easy. Our coaches are looking after the tactical aspect. The most important thing for us is that we need to play together as a team. The team bonding is quite high, and we will play together. We respect them, but we will play hard," the official website of AIFF quoted Sweety as saying.

The Indian women's team has already played in five different countries in 2021 -- Turkey, Uzbekistan, UAE, Bahrain, and Sweden. With Brazil set to be the sixth nation where the team will play, followed by another tournament in Kerala, all as a part of the preparation for the upcoming AFC Women's Asian Cup India 2022, the players are looking to lap up as many opportunities of playing against quality teams from all around the world.

"It's a challenge to play against superior teams. It's a good opportunity and challenge. We are developing ourselves, and it's a good opportunity for us to play them, so we want to take this opportunity," she stated.

"We learned a lot from the exposure tours that we recently had. We had never played these opponents -- UAE, Bahrain, Chinese Taipei, and then Sweden. The good thing was that the level of intensity of the matches slowly increased so that we could also match up to the opposition. In the end, the matches were of really high intensity," she added.

The Indian women's team had set camp in Jamshedpur in August, with infrastructural and logistical help coming in from the Government of Jharkhand. During this period, the team has worked on a range of things, including strength, endurance, technique and tactics under head coach Thomas Dennerby.

( With inputs from ANI )

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